Ban on headscarf expected to gain ground
HRWF Int. (29.12.2003) Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - In Brussels, the multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural capital of the European Union, the veil is in the dock.
The municipal council of Brussels has ordered public schools under its authority to ban the wearing of the headscarf and any religious symbols. Fifteen out of twenty public schools under the authority of the French Community have imposed the same ban while in the remaining five schools, 270 girls are said to wear a headscarf, according to Minister of Education Pierre Hazette. In denominational and other public schools, no official policy has been determined up to now.
The leading party of the ruling coalition, the Mouvement Reformateur, has announced a debate over the issue in January 2004. The leader of the party and the minister of education have already announced their stand: ban of the headscarf and of any religious symbol in public schools. Other political parties are still debating the issue at the level of their internal structures.
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International Religious Freedom Report 2003
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (18.12.2003) HRWF Int. (23.12.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.org - The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice.
There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report, and government policy continued to contribute to the generally free practice of religion; however, the Government continued to take action against groups that it considers "harmful sects."
The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom; however, several religious groups complained of discrimination, particularly groups that have not been accorded official "recognized" status by the Government and those associated primarily with immigrant communities.
The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government in the context of its overall dialog and policy of promoting human rights.
Section I. Religious Demography
The country has a total area of 12,566 square miles, and its population is approximately 10.3 million.
The population is predominantly Roman Catholic. According to the 2001 Survey and Study of Religion, jointly conducted by a number of the country's universities and based on self-identification, approximately 47 percent of the population identify themselves as belonging to the Catholic Church. The Muslim population numbers approximately 364,000, and there are an estimated 380 mosques in the country. Protestants number between 125,000 and 140,000. The Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches have approximately 70,000 adherents. The Jewish population is estimated at between 45,000 and 55,000. The Anglican Church has approximately 10,800 members. The largest nonrecognized religions are Jehovah's Witnesses, with approximately 27,000 baptized members, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), with approximately 3,000 members.
Estimates indicate that approximately 15 percent of the population do not identify with any religion. Approximately 7.4 percent of the population describe themselves as laic (members of nonconfessional philosophical organizations), and another 1.1 percent belong to organized laity.
According to a 1999 survey by an independent academic group, only 11.2 percent of the population attend weekly religious services. However, religion still plays a role in major life events--65 percent of the children born in the country are baptized; 49.2 percent of couples opt for a religious marriage; and 76.6 percent of funerals include religious services.
Section II. Status of Religious Freedom
Legal/Policy Framework
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice.
The Government accords "recognized" status to Roman Catholicism, Protestantism (including evangelicals), Judaism, Anglicanism, Islam, and Orthodox Christianity (Greek and Russian). These religions receive subsidies from government revenues. The Government also supports the freedom to participate in laic organizations. These secular humanist groups serve as a seventh recognized "religion," and their organizing body, the Central Council of Non-Religious Philosophical Communities of Belgium, receives funds and benefits similar to those of the six other recognized religions.
The Federal Government and Parliament have responsibility for recognizing faiths and paying the wages and pensions of ministers. As a result of constitutional reforms enacted by Parliament in 2001, religious teaching, accounting by religious groups, and religious buildings have become the jurisdiction of the regional governments. Laic organizations remain under the jurisdiction of the federal authorities.
By law each recognized religion has the right to provide teachers at government expense for religious instruction in schools. The Government also pays the salaries, retirement, and lodging costs of ministers and subsidizes the construction and renovation of religious buildings for recognized religions. The ecclesiastical administrations of recognized religions have legal rights and obligations, and the municipality in which they are located must pay any debts that they incur. Some subsidies are the responsibility of the Federal Government, while the regional and municipal governments pay others. According to an independent academic review, the Government at all levels spent $523 million (approximately 23 billion Belgian francs) on subsidies for recognized religions in 2000. Of that amount, 79.2 percent went to the Catholic Church, 13 percent to laic organizations, 3.5 percent to Muslims, 3.2 percent to Protestants, 0.6 percent to Jews, 0.4 percent to Orthodox Christians, and 0.1 percent to Anglicans.
The Government applies the five criteria in deciding whether or not to grant recognition to a religious group: The religion must have a structure or hierarchy; the group must have a sufficient number of members; the religion must have existed in the country for a long period of time; it must offer a social value to the public; and the religion must abide by the laws of the State and respect public order. The five criteria are not listed in decrees or laws, and the Government does not formally define "sufficient," "long period of time," or "social value." A religious group seeking official recognition applies to the Ministry of Justice, which then conducts a thorough review before recommending approval or rejection. Final approval of recognized status is the sole responsibility of the Parliament; however, the Parliament generally accepts the decision of the Ministry of Justice. A group whose application is refused by the Ministry of Justice may appeal the decision to the Council of State.
The lack of recognized status does not prevent religious groups from practicing their faith freely and openly. Nonrecognized groups do not qualify for government subsidies; however, they may qualify for tax-exempt status as nonprofit organizations.
The Muslim Executive Council, the group recognized by the Government to represent the Islamic faith, received government funding during the period covered by this report, but mosques, imams, and Islamic schools and teachers did not. In June the Justice Ministry agreed on the composition of a new interim Muslim Executive Council, as well as a list of mosques, imams, and other Islamic institutions that would be eligible to receive government subsidies. Both issues remained under consideration by the Government at the end of the period covered by this report.
In 2003, the Justice Minister signed a Royal Decree on the partial renewal of the Muslim Executive Council. Elections for a new Muslim General Assembly, a wider representative body, are scheduled for 2004.
Restrictions on Religious Freedom
Government policy continued to contribute to the generally free practice of religion; however, the Government continued to take action against groups that it considers as "harmful sects."
A special Parliamentary Commission established to examine the potential dangers posed by sects issued a report in 1997 that divided sects into two broadly defined categories. The Commission defined the first category of "respectable" sects as "organized groups of individuals espousing the same doctrine with a religion," which reflect the normal exercise of freedom of religion and assembly provided for by fundamental rights. The Commission defined the second category, "harmful sectarian organizations," as groups having or claiming to have a philosophical or religious purpose and whose organization or practice involves illegal or injurious activities, harm to individuals or society, or impairment of human dignity. The report included a list of 189 sectarian organizations, including the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Church of Scientology, and the Young Women's Christian Association. Although the introduction to the list stated that there was no intent to characterize any of the groups as "dangerous," the list quickly became known in the press and to the public as the "dangerous sects" list. The Parliament eventually adopted several of the report's recommendations but never adopted the list itself.
Some religious groups included in the 1997 parliamentary list have continued to complain that their inclusion has resulted in discriminatory action against them. In July a report issued by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights asserted that the Government had not taken any effective measures to counteract the hostility and discrimination suffered by members of religious groups depicted as "sects."
The 1997 parliamentary report led to the creation of a government-sponsored Center for Information and Advice on Harmful Sectarian Organizations, which collects publicly available information on a wide range of religious and philosophical groups and provides information and advice to the public upon request regarding the legal rights of freedom of association, privacy, and freedom of religion. The Center's library is open to the public and contains information on religion in general as well as on specific religious groups, including information provided by those groups. The Center has the authority to share with the public any information it collects on religious sects; however, it does not have the authority to provide assessments of individual sectarian organizations to the general public, and despite its name, the regulations prohibit it from categorizing any particular group as harmful.
An interagency coordination group designed to work in conjunction with the Center to coordinate government policy meets quarterly to exchange information on sect activities. The Government also has designated the Federal Prosecutor and 1 magistrate in each of the 27 judicial districts to monitor cases involving sects.
The 1997 parliamentary report also recommended that municipal governments sponsor information campaigns to educate the public, especially children, about the phenomenon of harmful sects. A 1998 law formally charges the country's State Security with the duty of monitoring harmful sectarian organizations as potential threats to the internal security of the country. A subgroup of law enforcement officials meets bi-monthly to exchange information on sect activities. Most law enforcement agencies have an official specifically assigned to handle sect issues.
In June a Prosecutor froze approximately $375,000 (326,000 euros) in a Church of Scientology bank account on suspicion of money laundering. The Prosecutor has directed a criminal investigation into the Church of Scientology's operations since 1999 on suspicion of fraud and privacy violations and criminal association. The Chamber of Indictment (a judicial panel that rules on the admissibility of charges formulated during a criminal investigation) returned the Church of Scientology file to the investigating judge and cleared the way for the case to proceed. The investigating judge indicated that the investigation was nearly complete, and the case could go to trial in 2004.
In February 2002, police detained five American volunteer workers at an Assemblies of God school and media center for working without employment permits; four were deported shortly thereafter. Assemblies of God teachers for years had obtained missionary visas, which do not require work permits. The Government now says that the teachers do not qualify for that status and must have work permits but have not identified a permit for which volunteer workers could apply. The Assemblies of God leaders closed the school in the wake of the deportations. At the end of the period covered by this report, the school remained closed, and Assemblies of God officials had still not been able to find an acceptable way for foreign volunteers to teach at the school.
The Church of Latter-day Saints continues to work to resolve the problem of obtaining visas for its missionaries. The Government had suspended visa issuance to Mormon missionaries for several months in 2000 and again beginning in November 2001. Mormon missionaries, who work as unpaid volunteers, do not qualify to obtain the work permits necessary to obtain visas under the Foreign Worker's Act of 1999, nor do they qualify for missionary visas due to the unrecognized status of the Church of Latter-day Saints. In June 2002, through the efforts of church officials and the U.S. Embassy, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed to exempt volunteer Mormon missionaries from the certificate requirement and to process all 85 pending visa applications. In March Mormon Church representatives appealed to the Government to formalize the agreement in writing. At the end of the period covered by this report, no written agreement had been obtained.
Some courts in the Flanders region have stipulated, in the context of child custody proceedings and as a condition of granting visitation rights, that a noncustodial parent who is a member of Jehovah's Witnesses may not expose his or her children to the teachings or lifestyle of that religious group during visits. These courts have claimed that such exposure would be harmful to the child; however, other courts have not imposed this restriction.
In 2002 the Advisory Bio-Ethical Committee criticized the practice of requiring that a physician respect the decision of an adult Jehovah's Witness to refuse a life-saving blood transfusion.
The Government permits religious instruction in public schools; however, students are not required to attend religion classes. Public school religion teachers are nominated by a committee from their religious group and appointed by the Minister of Education. All public schools offer a teacher for each of the six recognized religions. A seventh choice, a nonconfessional course, is available if the child does not wish a religious course. Private Catholic schools receive government subsidies for working expenses and teacher salaries. A few Catholic schools teach the Islamic faith, and the issue of whether Catholic schools should be obligated to offer religious teaching for other faiths was being discussed in the community and regional parliaments.
There were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees.
Forced Religious Conversion
There were no reports of forced religious conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States.
Section III. Societal Attitudes
The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom; however, several religious groups complain of discrimination, particularly groups that have not been accorded official "recognized" status by the Government and those associated primarily with immigrant communities.
According to the country's Anti-Racism Center, complaints of anti-Semitic incidents continued to rise in 2003. In June the synagogue in Charleroi again was targeted--this time in a failed car bombing. Government officials continued to criticize strongly attacks on the Jewish community and maintained increased security around synagogues and Jewish community buildings.
The Center for Equal Opportunity and the Fight Against Racism, an independent government agency, reports that 7.5 percent of the discrimination complaints filed with the Center during 2002 cited religion as the basis of the alleged discrimination.
At the national level, there is an annual general assembly of the National Ecumenical Commission to discuss various religious themes. The Catholic Church sponsors working groups at the national level to maintain dialog and promote tolerance among all religious groups. At the local level, every Catholic diocese has established commissions for interfaith dialog.
Section IV. U.S. Government Policy
The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government in the context of its overall dialog and policy of promoting human rights.
U.S. Embassy representatives discussed the issue of religious freedom with officials from the Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Interior, as well as with Members of Parliament. Embassy officials also expressed concern regarding anti-Semitic incidents. There is an ongoing dialog between the Embassy and the Ministry of Justice at the cabinet level regarding the implementation of recommendations of the 1997 parliamentary report on sectarian organizations. Embassy officials also meet regularly with officials of the Government's interagency coordination group who monitor sect activities and coordinate government policy on this issue. Embassy officials continued to monitor the Government's progress toward implementing a permanent solution to the Mormon visa problem and the issuance of work permits for volunteer religious workers.
Embassy officials met with representatives of both recognized and nonrecognized religions that reported some form of discrimination during the period covered by this report.
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The 1998 "anti-sect" Law needs to be revised
Analysis of the biennial reports of the "Sect Observatory"
Willy Fautr
HRWF Int. (17.12.2003) Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://hrwf.net - The Law of June 2, 1998 creating the "Information and Advisory Center on Harmful Sectarian Organizations" and the "Administrative Agency for the Coordination of the Fight against Harmful Sectarian Organizations" (1) must be revised so as to remove its discriminatory character and to put an end to the "immunity" of the religious establishment. The two aforementioned institutions should be replaced with an operational observatory independent from the state and of any ideological influence. This is the conclusion drawn by Human Rights Without Frontiers Int. after its analysis of the second biennial report of the Center (45 pages) published in September 2003. Moreover, Human Rights Without Frontiers Int. regrets that the Administrative Coordination Agency is not legally obliged to publish any report of activities so that its fight against harmful sectarian organizations (HSO) and its repressive policy to which the Center also contributes (2) remain totally opaque to the public, to targeted movements and to researchers.
About the distinction between "sects" and "harmful sectarian organizations"
The 1998 law, which appears to have drawn lessons from certain deviances of the French anti-sect policy (3), has often been presented as a model of moderation. On its website, the Center defines a "harmful sectarian organization," as "every movement with a philosophical or religious purpose, or claiming to be so, which, through its organization or practice, commits harmful illegal activities, harms the individual, society or human dignity. The harmful character of a sectarian movement will be investigated on the basis of principles that are embodied in the Constitution, laws, decrees, ordinances and in international treaties regarding the protection of human rights, which have been ratified by Belgium."(4)
The law claims to distinguish sects from harmful sectarian organizations. Yet, in practice, the Centers criteria delimiting the "sectarian" and "harmful" character of an organization are so complicated that it is impossible to clearly identify them (5). In its first report of activities published in December 2001, the definition of these terms comprises three pages.
The law itself contains a basic contradiction. On one hand, it proclaims that it wants to fight against harmful sectarian organizations, and on the other hand, it says that "the information provided by the Center in response to a request from the public () cannot be presented in the form of systematic lists of harmful sectarian organizations" (6).
Without doubt, this is a form of implicit recognition of the moral and material harm caused by the publication of a list of 189 movements suspected of being harmful sectarian organizations in an annex to the parliamentary report. But how can the public be warned against such organizations if they are not identified and if the law forbids doing so? For example, if certain brands of sun products are dangerous for the skin, how can consumers be put on guard without revealing their names? This is a deadlock, and the Center is doomed to endless contortions to try to square this circle embodied in the law.
To solve that contradiction, the second biennial report of the Center has chosen not to mention the targeted groups by their names but to list them together in several categories based on the nature of enquiries received (7): groups originating or dissident from Protestantism, groups centered on physical and mental welfare (8), groups from the Far East, groups originating or dissident from Catholicism, esoteric movements and New Age/ Neo-pagan movements. This categorization gives rise to a number of observations. First, the lack of coherence in the naming of the various categories is obvious. Second, there is total opacity about the identification of the groups the Center chooses behind closed doors to inform the public about. Hence there is no possible public debate about the unilateral decisions made by the Center (9). Third, for the first time in Western Europe, a state agency puts "groups centered on physical welfare" (10) under close scrutiny.
The second biennial report of the Center reveals only that it received one or more enquiries from the public about 72 out of the 189 groups suspected of being "harmful sectarian organizations" by the parliamentary commission in 1997 but that 170 files (11) concerning other non-quantified and non-identified groups have been opened. No other data is available and therefore, no external control of the work of the Center is possible (12).
About the collaboration with organizations in the field
As with the Centers first report, the study of the sectarian phenomenon is limited to the victims of and the dangers posed by the so-called HSO. The Belgian sectarian policy and its validity are never questioned. The complaints emanating from various groups operating in total legality and human rights organizations, along with criticisms voiced at the OSCE meetings on freedom of religion and belief, and blatantly anti-religious defamation in the media are ignored.
These invisible limits being set, the collaboration with organizations in the field excludes a number of prominent Belgian historians and sociologists of religions and mainly focuses on anti-sect movements (13).
About the continuation of the enquiry work of the parliamentary commission
According to the law, the Center is supposed to continue and complete the work of the enquiry commission. Following the example of this commission, the Center has not made a move towards the 189 movements suspected of being harmful sectarian organizations, either to clear them of any suspicion or to clearly label them as harmful sectarian organizations. The Center has only taken a spontaneous step towards the movements about which it wanted to publish an information leaflet. At the time of the Centers second biennial report, only three such leaflets have been disseminated: on the Mormons, the Bahais and the Jehovahs Witnesses.
The Centers investigation into the Bahais exonerates this group of any suspicion: "After thorough examination of the dossier, the Center has not found any data which could be a problem." This confirms that the Center has the power to give or not to give a quality label to a group or not.
With regard to an enquiry from the Ministry of the Interior concerning the access of US Mormon missionaries to the Belgian territory, the Center raises a number of controversial issues about this religious group but uses a diplomatic language and concludes that the movement does not represent any danger for the moment.
The description of the Jehovahs Witnesses movement (JW) is more critical (14) and the language is less moderate. Quite a number of statements are biased or even untrue (15). The Center has, for example, completely ignored a structured collaboration with medical doctors and hospitals (16) put in place by the Belgian JW to avoid possible conflicts because of JWs refusal to accept blood transfusions. It has also dramatically downplayed their persecution under Nazism: "Under Nazi rule, Jehovahs Witnesses were deported as such to camps. In these camps, they had to wear a distinctive badge" (17). About their persecution in some former republics of the Soviet Union, it is written that "they were and still seem to be the targets of acts of violence." And finally not a word about the huge body of jurisprudence in the field of religious freedom brought by JW to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. There is not a word about the Kokkinakis case in which the Court recognized JW as a religion as well as their right to propagate their faith from door to door. The movement of the JW is also the only one to be singled out in the section of the report devoted to the number of enquiries from the public received by the Center: 10% of the total number. While the Centers report does not give a quality label to JW, it implicitly files them in the category of " harmful sectarian organizations".
No Islamic harmful sectarian organizations in Belgium ?
The 1998 law does not limit the sectarian phenomenon to new religious movements but on reading the first two reports of the Center, it is noteworthy that its study of the sectarian phenomenon does not contain any warning or even any reference to Islamic sectarian organizations. It is as if such groups were non-existent and they posed no threat on democracy, public order, minors, etc.
Moreover, when we study the Centers leaflet concerning the Mormons, whose membership is very small, we notice that quite a number of controversial issues raised about them could be applied to many Islamic groups in Belgium: relations with the world and with other religions, the role of women, polygamy and exit from the religious group.
Some negative characteristics attributed to JW are not exclusive either: non-participation in Christian festivals (Christmas or Easter) or secularized and pagan festivals (St Nicolas, St Valentine or Halloween), which is identified as causing isolation from society, and the womans role in the family and in society, "which is not in line with the European and international tendency regarding gender equality, etc."
Despite these similarities with other targeted religious movements, the general impression that emerges from the reading of the Centers first two reports is that there are no Islamic harmful sectarian organizations in Belgium.
About the "religiously correct" thinking
State-sponsored and state-financed religions are exempt from any investigation and public warning campaigns to the public by the Center. Activities such as paedophilia, if practised, encouraged or tolerated by a new religious movement, will be condemned by the Center, as they should be. But these same activities will be disregarded by the Center if they are committed by Catholic or Orthodox priests, pastors, rabbis or imams.
Some Catholic "dissident" groups are said to have been monitored by the Center. The only one that is mentioned is the congregation of a marginal, popular and controversial Syrian Catholic priest from a Muslim country, Father Samuel. His generosity has been widely covered by the media (18), but his statements about the Islamic threat in Europe also brought him some problems. He was supported by a number of high-ranking Socialist and Christian-democrat politicians, but he was dismissed as a priest, by the Roman Catholic establishment. A trial resulting from his dismissal is still pending in a civil court. We cannot help but wonder what information was distributed on Father Samuel by the Center whose president is a member of the Catholic establishment? What about the Opus Dei, suspected by the parliamentary commission of being a HSO but fully integrated in the Vatican establishment? This group is not mentioned by name in any biennial report of the Center. Nobody knows whether there have been enquiries about it or not and whether the Center has included it in its study of the sectarian phenomenon.
Religious groups emanating from the Protestant family but most probably not belonging to the state-recognized Protestant Church represent a substantial share of the enquiries dealt with by the Center (about 20%). Unfortunately, the specific groups are can not be identified.
The group Transcendental Meditation was also the object of some investigation by the Ministry of Justice in 2002 after it had requested to apply its techniques in a prison. Due to the short delay, the Center could not carry out proper investigation in the field and visited a number of websites about the TM. In its conclusions, the Center says, among other things, that the TM technique is not religiously neutral and it is controversial, the participation of prisoners and guardians in a religious worship without their full awareness of its nature may be questionable. The Centers final advice is to warn against TM.
These few examples clearly highlight the instrumentalization of the agencies created by the 1998 law for the purpose of protecting various establishments, solidifying the "correct thinking" in a number of fields, and in particular but not exclusively the political regulation of religious and non-religious worldviews outside the state-recognized and state-controlled religions.
The political subordination of the Center and the Administrative Coordination Agency
The Nastase Report of the Council of Europe (1999) (19) invited the governments of the Member States to "create national information centers independent from the State. These centers, to be more efficacious, should be united in a European Observatory of groups of religious, esoteric or spiritual character." This suggestion had already been made in Recommendation 1178 (1992), in which it was underlined nevertheless that "the recourse to a major legislation for sects was inopportune." The Belgian law claims to have been drafted in the perspective of the Nastase Report. Do the Center and the Administrative Coordination Agency respond to these criteria? Quite obviously, no. The law is a major piece of legislation on sects. The Coordination Agency is, by its very nature, an interdepartmental tool of fight against harmful sectarian organizations that depends on political power. This is no less true for the Center.
In a Carte Blanche published in the newspaper Le Soir on January 7, 2003 under the title "A quoi sert donc lObservatoire des sectes?" ("What use then is the Sect Observatory?"), Professor Anne Morelli (20) well summarizes the arguments of those questioning the Belgian policy with regard to certain religious minorities. She writes: "The recruiting method of these members is very far from guaranteeing their impartiality and their independence from political parties, the Catholic Church and various anti-religious ideologies. Indeed, half of the members were nominated by the Council of Ministers for approval by the House of Representatives, while the other half was directly appointed by the House of Representatives. That means that a good share of appointees immediately came from political personalities. Moreover, representatives of various anti-sect movements were also to be found among the members. The chairman, a theologian and a former father superior of Brussels high seminary, has been an anti-sect activist in the Catholic Church for more than twenty years, is currently both a judge and a party and does not seem in a better position to respond to the guarantees required by law from the members to exercise their mission with independence and in a spirit of objectivity and impartiality. ()"
"As for the Observatory, the independence of its functioning is hardly guaranteed with its ties to the Ministry of Justice and the collaboration of some staff pulled from this Ministry" (21).
The position taken here, proclaimed loud and clear, reflects well what many think deep down. Confirmation of the well-foundedness of Professor Anne Morellis critiques concerning the lack of independence of the Center is the latters silence and its failure to ask for a right of reply. The only one to react was the president of the parliamentary commission on sects, former senator Serge Moureaux; he did it in a polemical fashion in the columns of Le Soir (instead of the Center?) without responding to Professor Morellis basic critiques, notably those concerning the political subordination of the Center.
Study of the sectarian phenomenon
As mentioned previously, according to the 1998 Law, the Centers mission is also study of the sectarian phenomenon, the very mandate leaving the door open to all sorts of interpretations.
Strange voices
The first report of the Center mentions a request from the Vice-Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs (22) in which he asks for the Centers opinion on the FECRIS (23), an international federation of some dozens of anti-sect movements. The goal of this request was to obtain official recognition for the federation "so that it can be consulted by the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, as well as by the United Nations and the organs and commissions that depend on it. Additionally, the FECRIS is to serve as liaison between administrative authorities empowered to take all possible steps to implement procedures for fiscal and customs control on behalf of States and the European Union as well as with international services created for the same reason" (24). The Center submitted a favorable opinion of the FECRIS to the Minister.
One might wonder about the appropriateness of such a request, emanating from a minister and about his motivations, about the mandate of the Center and its independence in this matter. More cause for wonder is that that the FECRIS first request to obtain consultative status to the Council of Europe was severely criticized and turned down on the basis of a several-page, detailed and motivated analysis of the organization.
Discordant voices
Another object of surprise: "Divergent, even contradictory, points of view were reflected in a number of interviews in the media," said Prof. Anne Morelli in her Carte Blanche. Dissonant opinions have for example been expressed in the printed media, on the radio, and on television when the Hare Krishna movement found itself amidst a media tempest at the beginning of the year 2002. The Center was far from speaking with a sole voice. Two representatives interviewed held contradictory positions, and a third, member of the Center but speaking in the name of her anti-sect movement, did not show any shade of nuance.
Silence
On the contrary, when minority religions complain of discrimination and intolerance from public authorities or non-state actors, the response is total silence.
Prof. Anne Morelli write in her Carte Blanche : " the Observatory stays mute on religious discrimination committed by public authorities (25) and keeps critiques to itself when ministers or mayors refuse the use of public halls to groups operating legally because their names are to be found on a so-called list of harmful cults."
How could it be otherwise in an institution so closely dependent on the political authorities ? Could the Center criticize mayors who are part of the majority in power or the political authorities who, in 1999, launched a huge media campaign against sects, published and disseminated a glossy four-color brochure warning against "189 so-called active sects in Belgium", a false "statement" that the Center has never denounced or rectified? Can it be expected that the staff of the Center pulled from the Ministry of Justice would criticize political authorities in power? The answer is obvious.
Minority religions have widely distributed tangible evidence of discrimination committed by public and private authorities. HRWF Int. did the same even before the publication of the first report of activities. However, the report mentions nothing. The silence of the Center speaks for itself.
It is also noteworthy that the budget and the balance sheet of the Center have not been published in any of the reports until now. A statement made to the press in September 2003 (26) by the deputy president mentioned the amount of 600,000 Euros but no detail was disclosed about the items contained in the budget.
Information to the public
Under the heading "Mission 3: Reception and information of the public", ten pages (27) with lots of colorful graphs and charts are devoted to the number of enquiries received over the last four years but do not provide any relevant information about this mission of the Center, and in particular about the identity of the groups concerned.
Internet site
The Center has an Internet site, but four years after its creation, the public was still unable to find anything on a particular movement, not even the contents of the folders published on the Mormons, the Bahais, and the Jehovahs Witnesses. Frequently Asked Questions and the Centers answers are not to be found on its website (28). The website is dramatically under-used even though it could be an effective, time-saving and inexpensive instrument of dispensing information instead of answers by regular mail to individuals and groups. The work of the Center would also gain visibility.
The sections " The Center in the press " and " Communiqus and articles by the Center " are still under construction.
In the section " Publications , " we can find the Centers two reports of activities disseminated, covering the years 1999-2000, the law of June 2, 1998, royal decrees, the internal rule of order adopted by the House of Representatives, an decision by the Court of Arbitration favorable to the Center and a link to the Report of the Parliamentary Enquiry Commission on Sects.
In the section " Library " can be found a very interesting bibliography of more than 300 reference works.
The section "Associations of assistance and information in Belgium" lists ten associations, nearly all of which share the mission of providing aid to the victims of cults. Other associations covering the phenomenon from a different perspective could also be listed here, but they are not.
Information service by mail
The Center responds to the questions from the public communicated by mail, by telephone or by any other means, on the basis of the information that is available to it, but the way these questions are handled is not known (29). The opacity of this mission of the Center has already been discussed in this article.
These questions could be raised: Is it acceptable for the Center not to consult the movements about which it disseminates information? Is it unrealistic to expect the Center to consult with movements before drafting a response to frequently asked questions about them?
Conclusion
The political regulation of the religious movements, worldviews and groups of physical and psychological well-being enshrined in the Law of June 2, 1998, creating the "Information and Advisory Center on Harmful Sectarian Organizations" along with the "Administrative Agency for the Coordination of the Fight against Harmful Sectarian Organizations" is not in line with international instruments, and in particular with the provisions of the Nastase Report and the OSCE commitments regarding freedom of religion and belief (30). In its current phrasing, the said law is discriminatory and a source of religious intolerance.
Human Rights Without Frontiers Int. recommends
Considering the shortcomings of the June 2, 1998 Law, its controversial field of implementation, its discriminatory character, its contradictions;
Considering the institutional dependence of the agencies created by the law on the political power and ideological groups of interest;
Considering the lack of public report of activities by the Administrative Agency for the Coordination of the Fight against Harmful Sectarian Organizations;
Considering the application of the law to groups focusing on both "physical and psychological well-being";
Considering the opacity of the Centers reports on some of its main activities (identification and number of groups targeted, contents of the distributed information, non-neutral presentation of some religious groups, financial report, etc.)
Human Rights Without Frontiers Int. recommends to the Belgian legislators
the revision of the June 2, 1998 Law and the creation of an Inter-university Information and Advisory Observatory on Religions and Worldviews.
____________
(1) This law can be found on the website of the C.I.A.O.S.N. http://www.ciaosn.be.
(2) Art . 6, 2 "In fulfilment of its mission, the Center will work together with the Administrative Agency of Coordination" and Article 15, 5 says that the coordinating staff of the Administrative Coordination Agency is entrusted with the mission of "producing a close cooperation with the Center and comprehension of the measures necessary for the implementation of suggestions and recommendations from the Center." And on page 44, the C.I.A.O.S.N. biennial report (Years 2001-2002) confirms its participation in the fight against HSO "The collaboration between both agencies has become closer."
(3) The French anti-sect policy was mainly known through its law creating the Interministerial Mission of Fight against Sects (MILS), abrogated in 2002 and replaced by another law creating the Interministerial Mission of Vigilance and Fight against Sectarian Deviances (MIVILUDES), and through the About-Picard Law.
(4) http://www.ciaosn.be
(5) C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial report (Years 1999-2000), pp 11,12,13 .
(6) Art . 6, 4 : " The information that the Center supplies at the request of the public is based on the information which the Center has available and may not be presented in the form of systematic lists of harmful sectarian organizations."
(7) C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial report (Years 2001-2002), pp 29, 30. From January 2000 to February 2003, the enquiries were split as follows: groups originating or dissident from Protestantism (30.1%), groups centered on physical and mental welfare (17.8%), groups from the Far East (15.6%), groups originating or dissident from Catholicism (6.4%), esoteric movements (5.5%), New Age/ Neo-paganism (4.9%), the sect phenomenon in general (7.6%), groups not covered by the Centeŕ¡¯s mandate (4.0%), the Center (5.4%).
(8) C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial report (Years 2001-2002), pp 13-17. Five pages are devoted to the topic "Sects and health" and show close collaboration with the medical and pharmaceutical establishment.
(9) C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial report (Years 2001-2002). As groups not covered by the Centers mandate represent 4.0% of the enquiries, the Center can be said to consider all the other groups as sects, to check if they are harmful and to distribute information about them without their knowledge.
(10) This activity of the Center is not covered by the 1998 law. Anti-sect policies in Germany, Austria, France and Belgium had already gone beyond their normal mandate by including "psycho-groups". Belgium now goes one step further.
(11) C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial Report (Years 1999-2000), p 29.
(12) For example, it is impossible to know whether there were enquiries about Free-masonry and if so, in what category the Center would have filed them.
(13) See C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial Report (Years 2001-2002), pp 12 and others: ADIF (Association for the defence of the individual and the family), ASFVS (Association for the support to families victims of sects, 1994), AVCS (Aid to the victims of sectarian behaviors), AVPIM (Association of victims of illegal medical practices), CIGS (Contacts and information on sectarian groups), OLS (Local observatory of sects, 1996), SAS (Study and advisory group on sects, 1997), SOS Sects (2001), VVPG (Association for the defence of the person and the family).
(14) C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial Report (Years 2001-2002), pp 35-37.
(15) For example: The only contact JW are said to be allowed to have with the outside world is through proselytism (p 36 of the second biennial report). This is completely untrue. JW are fully integrated into society where they practice all sorts of occupations (teachers, engineers, lawyers, etc.).
(16) Over 600 medical doctors and surgeons as well as hospitals have expressed their readiness to treat JW according to their religious beliefs. Moreover, no JW in Belgium has ever been convicted on the basis of "failure to surrender assistance to a person in danger."
(17) The Center could have said in its last report that from 1933 to the end of WW II, 10 000 German JW were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps (and not just in "camps"), that 1200 died or were executed, gassed or even beheaded during their captivity. Moreover, it is really shocking that the report uses the word "badge" (cusson in French) when describing the purple triangle JW had to wear.
(18) He regularly makes donations to charities (homeless people, children with cancer in hospitals, etc.) and integrally gave people in need the money he earned from a court case against the Catholic Church.
(19) Illegal Activities of Sects, Doc. 8373, April 13, 1999. Report. Commission of legal and human rights questions. Rapporteur : M. Adrian Nastase, Romania, Socialist.
(20) rofessor at the Institut dtude des religions et de la la?cit de ULB.
(21) Note from the author : A mode of recruitment of the Center personnel charged with daily management is not indicated in the law of June 2, 1998. In transferring personnel from the Ministry of Justice, the political authorities created the conditions necessary to make a dependent and docile organ. The boundaries of the Center is well marked, although they are not expressed in the law. The choice is simple: either to be politically incorrect and enter into a head-on collision with policy, or practice self-censorship and leave the political establishment undisturbed.
(22) Letter dated October 4, 1999.
(23) C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial Report (Years 1999-2000), pp 9, 15, 23, 24.
(24) C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial Report (Years 1999-2000), pp 23, 24.
(25) Note from Human Rights Without Frontiers Int; : for example, the anti-sect campaign orchestrated by the French Community of Belgium that wrongly calls "active sects" the 189 movements inventoried in the Parliamentary Report. Or again, the intolerance and discrimination practiced both by public and private authorities, with regard to minority religions: slander, stigmatising broadcasts and articles in the media, victimization at work or school, attacks on the reputations of ordinary persons or intellectuals having dissident opinions in the matter, loss of employment or promotions, refusal or limitation of the right to visit or rejection of the right to custody in cases of divorce, impossibility of renting public or private spaces for religious ceremonies or meetings, denial of access to public posting boards, police supervision and interrogation, judicial complaints for supposed illegal practice of medicine, cases of temporary imprisonment, etc.
See detailed cases on the Internet site
http://www.hrwf.net/html/belgium2002.html,
http://www.hrwf.net/html/belgium2001.html
http://www.hrwf.net/html/belgium1999.html
(26) Le Soir, 18 September 2003.
(27) C.I.A.O.S.N., Biennial Report (Years 2001-2002), pp 20-29.
(28) Website visited in September 2003.
(29) "The information that the Center supplies at the request of the public is based on the information which the Center has available and may not be presented in the form of lists or systematic statements of harmful sectarian organizations."
(30) For example the 1989 Vienna Concluding Document.
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Sects in Flanders
An interview of the director of the Sect Observatory
On 14 October 2003, the Flemish weekly magazine HUMO published a five-page report on sects in Flanders, which opened up with an interview of the director of the Belgian Sect Observatory and went on with interviews of four victims of sects. The titles of the various sections of the report were quite explicit: Sects are only after three things: God, money and sex C Prophet of the end of times C God loves you C Twenty years of detoxification C Satan in Freddy Maertens C Kidnappers C Deprogrammers.
HRWF Int. (15.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - In hard times, Gods commercial travellers make money hand over fist. Because when lots of people are looking for a job and the economy is in recession, the group of potential followers increases. Six years after the publication of the long-debated parliamentary sect report, we are taking a look at the current situation. What does it look like? Sects are THE current booming business. There were never before as many sects and as many victims as now.
In 1997, the Parliamentary Commission on Sects took an inventory of 189 religious groups: from small groups such as The Knights of the Golden Lotus and the Group Adoring the Crying Madonna van Bohan, to notorious worldwide sects as Opus Dei and Jehovahs Witnesses.
Nowadays, the Sect Observatory (IACHSO, Information and Advice Center on Harmful Sectarian Organisations) counts about 250 groups: among them, quite a lot of evangelical and protestant newcomers, pushed by winds from Anglo-Saxon countries. Jehovahs Witnesses remain the biggest and the best organised sect (24,400 members). Their missionaries work as intelligence agents: they collect private data about citizens, prepare conversations carefully with handbooks such as How to convince a Catholic and knock at your door. Housewives are a favorite target. On all levels of hierarchy of Jehovahs Witnesses, there are overseers who strictly follow the movements of the members. According to a sect-watcher, it is like Pol Pots or Stalins regime.
The Observatory receives about 200 enquiries per month from citizens (one third about Jehovahs Witnesses), six times more than last year. It however does not make media campaigns and is hardly known. We keep a low profile on purpose, says director Eric Brasseur. Otherwise, we would spend all our time with the attorneys of religious groups. Some sects only exist through their court cases because that is how they can get media coverage. We are not going to help them, are we?
Eric Brasseur: Selling shows is part of it, especially when groups have few members. The Raelians, for example. At the beginning of this year, they were big in the news with the cloning of babies. I think that they do not even have a hundred members. I also think of Scientology, which organised that media show on the occasion of the opening ceremony of their new church (1) on the Rue de la Loi. With such actions, they only give the impression that they are important. With their Belgian members, they would not even be able to fill a small room. That is why they brought a cargo of followers from abroad.
Humo: There are, however, many sects in Belgium. How do you explain that?
Brasseur: The ground is very fertile. There is loneliness, the existence of insecurity is worsening and families are no longer the steadfast cornerstone of society. More and more people go drifting off and fall prey to religious groups. It is not by chance either that about half of all the groups propose alternative medicine: sick people are very vulnerable. Moreover, big, recognised religions are losing their authority and are less visible. Many people are individualistic and want a tailor-made religion.
Humo: According to ULB-Professor Anne Morelli, the Center determines which religions are suitable and which ones are not. She calls that discrimination.
Brasseur: We are not at all conscience police. Most of the phone calls come from people with a relative whose behavior has drastically changed after he/she has joined a group. We send a written answer about the problems that exist in such a group, and for this information work, we only rely on official documents and identifiable sources.
The lobbyers of religious groups sometimes spread false information about us on purpose to serve the interests of fundamentalist political groups. They grant themselves names which suggest some credibility (Humo note: Brasseur targets here, among others, Human Rights Without Frontiers) (2) and juggle with concepts such as the United Nations, Helsinki or human rights. In this way, they give the impression that they are official organisations. It is a strategy that pays off because their statements are sometimes used by professors and authorities. If we believe them, Belgium is constantly practising religious discrimination, hunting sects and their members regularly experience police harassment (3). I think this is not serious. Freedom of religion is better respected in our country than in others, and Belgium has recognised some religions, i.e. Islam, much earlier. What beats all is that some groups complain they are not recognised as religions while they do not even wish to be recognised. Do you think that Scientology has ever asked to be recognised? They do not want legal status at all because then, they must publish their accounting.
The so-called sect-hunting seems to be successful in Belgium. There are currently three pending cases against the non-profit Spiritual Human Yoga (illegal practice of medicine and financial embezzlement), the Tibetan Buddhist group Ogyen Kunzang Choling (sexual abuse of minors) and Scientology; recently, nine Scientology leaders were put under investigation on the grounds of criminal conspiracy, swindling, violation of privacy laws and illegal practice of medicine.
But the sufferings of hundreds of anonymous former sect-members (4) never reach the court rooms or the media. We have gleaned some anonymous testimonies out of Gods madhouses. ()
Human Rights Without Frontiers recommends
to the Belgian Federal Government
- that it revise the Law of 2 June 1998 creating an Information and Advice Center on Harmful Sectarian Organisations along with an Agency for the Coordination of the Fight against Harmful Sectarian Organisations so as to create an Inter-university Information and Advice Centre on Religions and Worldviews.
(1) HRWF note: This is a mistake. It is not a new church but the Church of Scientology International European Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights.
(2) HRWF note: This is false information spread on purpose about us, as it is known from our statutes and our website that we are a non-religious organisation which is independent from any religious or political group, while the Sect Observatory is under the authority of the Ministry of Justice and is funded by it. It is also our privilege not to be an official organisation, which have never claimed or pretended to be and which gives us the necessary freedom of expression to expose violations of human rights in quite a range of fields and countries.
(3) HRWF note: This is a veiled and biased criticism regarding our last publication, Religious freedom, intolerance and discrimination in the EU/ Belgium 2002-2003 (12 p).
(4) HRWF note: The same sort of testimonies could be obtained from former members of Christian Churches, Islam and other religions.
Translation from Dutch-English by Human Rights Without Frontiers Int.
Official Islam in Belgium
Dr Yassin Didier Beyens
Vice President of the Executive of the Muslims of Belgium
Brussels, September 27, 2003
Suffrage-universel.be (29.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (10.10.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email info@hrwf.net - More than four years have passed since the representative Muslim authorities were instituted in Belgium. It was in fact December 13, 1998 that the democratic vote was organized within the Muslim communities. 48,000 electors presented themselves at the 124 election offices (mosques and public places), all 18 years of age or more, domiciled in Belgium for more than a year. This election resulted in the election of a General Assembly of 68 members, of which a quarter was co-opted (notably to guarantee a more optimum representation of different streams). A restricted Executive (17 members) then was proposed to the Ministry of Justice, "in charge" of religious affairs. This first phase of the institutionalisation of Islam in the landscape of a country with four linguistic communities and seven parliaments was closed with the recognition of the representative platform on the basis of a royal Decree, as well as with new dispositions of the law of March 4, 1870 on the worldly aspects of the religion. Because the State finances recognized religions on the condition that they present a credible speaker, nothing prevented them then from treating the Islamic religion similarly, comparing them to other recognized religions and regulating the question of subsidies or other issues..
The gestation of a representative platform recognized by the government and by the Muslim community has taken 25 years (from 1974 to 1999). This situation has experienced a chaotic progression influenced by changes of government and by evolutions within the Muslim community: an official Saudi speaker who was opposed to a federation of mosques, an elected council of Muslims opposed to a council of "wise men" designated by the government, and a long mediation period that passed over the setting up of a technical committee to that of a provisional executive of Muslims, both of them having limited prerogatives. It is this executive, charged with the designation of teachers and of chaplains of the Islamic religion, that proposed to the Ministry of Justice an election project within the Muslim communities. A favourable current for full recognition of the Muslim religion has been developing in public opinion at this same time period, following the kidnapping and murder of a young Moroccan girl.
But the recognition in the legal texts and the granting of a more consistently functioning budget do not guarantee a continuation without shadows or pitfalls. The Muslims must deal with numerous challenges if they wish the Muslim religion to be treated on the same footing as other recognized religions and to look for the most appropriate alchemy between religion and the neutral public square. Concretely, the representative platform must begin to ask for recognition of local Islamic communities linked to the mosques: this is the second phase of the institutionalisation of Islam. It has not yet taken place to this day.
Let us examine briefly some difficulties that the representative platform of the Muslim religion runs into.
Of course, some of them are external, linked to contexts that are national, historical, legal or socio-political (secularization of society with a mistrust of marks showing identity; sharing of powers regarding the Islamic religion at all levels of power ; political instrumentalization of anti-Muslim sentiments) or international (climate of fear and of mistrust brought about by current dramas)
Other difficulties dealing with relationships are internal and linked to the functioning of the Executive itself. They have to do with the ability to respect the plurality of sympathies and at the same time to reinforce the consensus determined by elections, beyond cultural particularities and ethnic differences. Indeed, even if Islam is one, the Muslim community is diverse from a sociological point of view and each stream often tries to give a privileged position to its members. Group together in the same representative platform, they all must get to know each other, accept each other, help each other. They must strive in cases where the issues are sometimes very terrestrial and the issues of power are very real. The democratic deficits in the final phase of the recognition ("screening" by the minister and the intelligence services) have served as a pretext to denounce cases of deficiencies and embezzlements discovered later on about certain people.
But fortunately, the conflicts, the blockages, the plots, and the recourses to the courts were replaced by periods of greater understanding and greater cohesion, marked by a desire for forgiveness and general reconciliation. Nevertheless, the communication deficit with the basic communities mortgaged the trust and the popularity of the representative platform, and that, despite its visibility in the media.
Concretely, a new Executive was proposed to the Council of Ministers by the General Assembly and recognized in April 2003 for only a term of one year.
The other internal difficulties have to do with principles.
1st: It is sometimes difficult to nuance, in the language and the facts, the constructed concept of "symbolic representation." This concept cannot specifically contribute to a better understanding of sociological reality and mimes a clerical system that is alien to Islam. With a primary duty to administratively manage the worldly aspects of the religion, the members of the Executive have not always put necessary limits on the exercise of their functions. While making statements on current phenomena or on controversial issues, they have exposed themselves to criticisms by those who do not necessarily share their unilateral positions. Nevertheless, we have witnessed the emergence of spokespersons who have been able to explain, reassure, temper, and weaken false conclusions and misunderstandings in public opinion.
2nd: Next, difficulty arises concerning relations to politics. The border is not always visible. The risks of instrumentalization are very real and in both senses. As can be seen in the media, one or another religious representative may be affected by political issues and undermine the representative platform by clientelism. He may emphasize the negative aspects, attempting to create a climate of frustration and presenting himself as defender of the oppressed. Inversely, politicians might want to attract the favors of a community of potential electors. But whatever the intentions of politicians, if, in societal debates (immigration, integration, security), they consider Muslims as an ethno-compact group and appeal to them as such in their globality, they ethnicize religious or philosophical differences of multi-ethnic background to the detriment of collective solidarity and individual citizenship.
With experience, the members of the Executive have progressively become aware of the necessity to maintain the independence and the political neutrality of their platform, while emphasizing their function and separating religious affairs from problematic ones that depend more on social and economic factors (insecurity, delinquency, ghettoization)
3rd : And finally, the last difficulty has been to leave behind speeches impregnated with plaintive accents and victimization. If public opinion remains influenced by international current events, if the media often dramatizes debates, if reactions of identity-based withdrawal are a response to those who feel concerned, target the responsibilities or accuse, must the representative platform also support the escalation on the basis of clichs or reductive concepts? When carried along in an ambient atmosphere nourished by serious but often occasional facts, the Executive has not always acted with sufficient wisdom, stirring up and manipulating emotions through public statements (dramatization, blackening, distorting, labelling of events).
But, little by little, awareness took hold, in a sparse way, that the exclusive outpouring of negative aspects (in stigmatizing the "security obsession," for example) and the focus on discrimination (by using unilaterally the concept of "Islamophobia," for example), created "communal divides" incompatible with the main function of the representative platform: to manage the worldly aspects of the religion while looking for the best ways to dialogue with the authorities. The Executive could not transform itself into an organ of communitarian defense, under the risk of putting the neutrality of the public powers into question, and of being instrumentalized by private interests, as a means of propaganda, of opposition or of dispute. Even if official Islam must denounce the "anti-Muslim simplisms," its ideal of action is marked, before everything, by the search for more conviviality, without excluding the possibility of showing specificity and putting forth its own values in a reciprocal and respectful manner.
Conclusion
The journey towards the institutionalization of Islam in Belgium reveals, on a more general level, the issue and the place of the sacred in a secularized and secular society, and more precisely, the question of relations between state and religion.
The challenge of the "newly included" is to be able to develop an authentic citizenship, non-partisan or ambivalent, around the conception of justice, with an equality of rights and duties for everyone.
In front of the challenge posed by citizenship, will the Muslim presence mean more of a multiculturalism of cohabitation, tinged with egalitarianism on a multi-ethnic background, than an interculturality of the mixed, more centered on collective solidarity?
Will the official religious authorities also try to respond to this in their own way? If most of them choose the second option, this will mean a move to:
- a refusal of an identity-based characterization not very compatible with the exercise of citizenship,
- a desire to distance themselves from minority behavior, which sectorizes and weakens collective solidarity,
- the construction of a more rational discourse, less impregnated by the concept of cultural exception, radicalism, or artificial remarks of convenience,
- an attempt to escape the demagogy of power, populism, clientelism and everything that feeds collective interests,
- a distancing with regard to current news, and a development of long-term visions,
- a stimulation or anticipation of active proposals for everybody, from a universality that comes from their own reference points (helping achieve a more impartial and non-communal justice, public charity, sensitization to respect for the environment).
That of course supposes that these authorities could profit from an optimal support from their base to concretize choices regarding society, to resist tensions, diversions and manipulations from all sides, and to orient in a constructive way both internal debate and the necessary self-criticism.
Translated by HRWF Int.
The Ministry of Justice keeps an eye on the Church of Scientology
By Hugues Dorze
Le Soir (02.10.2003)/HRWF Int. (09.10.2003) C Website http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email info@hrwf.net - Who finances the HQ of the Scientologists, situated on 91 Rue de la Loi in Brussels? What are the activities that are proposed there? What sort of lobbying is practiced in the capital of Europe? Monday in the House, Deputy MP Martine Payfa interrogated the Minister of Justice, Laurette Onkelinx (PS), on this subject.
Inaugurated last September 17, this ? European Bureau of Public Affairs and Human Rights ? was purchased and renovated by the American organization, Building Management Services Corporation, an affiliate of the International Church of Scientology, which is officially located on 6331 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. This society, indicated Minister Onkelinx, is considered by the fiscal American administration as a religious and charitable society, meriting fiscal exemption.
This office does not have, stricto sensu, a direct legal link with the Church of Scientology of Belgium. Which, it is necessary to recall (Le Soir of August 27) is at the center of a judicial matter that risks resulting before long in a court case involving eight persons and a non-profit organization. These people are charged with swindling, illegal practice of medicine and pharmacy, criminal organization and violations of the privacy law.
Minister Onkelinx recalled that this same Church of Scientology has created a good number of commercial corporations or has its say in already-existing firms and has access to important financial resources. It stands out in the social sector, notably in the battle against drugs.
After the creation (in March 1982) of a non-profit, first named Narconon and since then dissolved (September 1985), two other associations saw the light of day: No to drugs, yes to life (Uccle) and the non-profit Narconon Infocenter (Dilbeek). To this day, specified Laurette Onkelinx, I have not been directly informed by my colleagues of the community and regional parliaments of possible infiltration attempts into sectors relevant to their abilities. But the Minister promises to follow this closely.
To the question of knowing if the Centre dinformation et davis sur les organizations sectaries nuisibles (CIAOSNthe Center of Information and Advice on Harmful Sectarian Organizations) has effected a report on the Church of Scientology, the Minister of Justice responded in the negative: In order to not interfere with the criminal procedure in process, it seemed to the Center that it would be delicate to render an opinion, declared Laurette Onkelinx. Nevertheless, the CIAOSN has responded to about thirty demands regarding Scientology. For Deputy Payfa (MP), this is insufficient: the federal authorities must assure better public information on this subject. This is an opinion shared by an anti-fascist network (www.resistances.be), which denounces the Scientology intoxications and revives an appeal to vigilance and to the fight against sectarian organizations that threaten our democracies.
A unique Muslim school
By Alain Gerard
Le Soir (03.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (08.09.2003) C Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Geographic coincidence or sociological consequence of similar waves of immigration that occurred in the north of France and the south of Belgium?
Whichever it is, the only school of the Averros type in Belgium is found in the border town of Hensies (not far from Lille). An entity that, since World War I, has been a refuge for workers from the whole world. Among them, the Muslim community is well-represented through Maghrebin and Turkish immigration.
The Muslim private school of Hensies, a nonprofit organization called Isiastanding for the Institute of Islamic Sciences Avicenne (after an Arab-Islamic doctor and philosopher)is headed by the Turkish Muslim community of Belgium. This latter community represents around a third of 400 to 450,000 Muslims in the country.
General secondary-level classes are taught in this school, which has been open for fifteen years and is only frequented by adolescents (about thirty supervised by volunteer professors). A major part of the curriculum is devoted to the teaching of Islam and Muslim culture in all its aspects (historical, geographical, etc.). This curriculum is similar to that which can be found in private courses given on weekends by certain large mosques in the country.
Although it is supported by private subsidies (parents and donors), the Hensies school is pointed at by detractors that describe it as a ghetto.
If we were one, explained an Isia representative, we would not have open-door events. Besides, in order to combat academic failure, some of our students take classes at the Athne of Quivrain.
With regard to private Muslim schools that are financed by public authorities in Belgium, the primary school Al Ghazali (named after one of the most famous Islamic theologians) functions as a school of the Islamic Centre of the great mosque of Brussels (at the Cinquantenaire).
Furthermore, a Muslim secondary school project, to be financed by public authorities and that would be called Ibn Khaldoun (after an Arab historian) remains on the shelf for lack of financing and an appropriate location. As the second largest religion in Belgium, Islam has the right, following the example of other religions, to have its own private school financed by the public authorities, comments Mohamed Boulif, president of the Executive of the Muslims of Belgium. But before getting there, first each public school must become a place of true citizenship where all the cultures that make up the country are taken account of.
Back to school without the veil at the Athne Royal of Brussels II
The parents of two young veiled girls, who could not register at the school, will bring complaints
By Alain Gerard
Le Soir (05.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (08.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Bareheaded and confused. Its back to school, Thursday morning, at the Athne Royal of Brussels II in Laeken.
Last June, the school decided to ban, as of the next school term 2003, the wearing of all head-coverings in its establishment. The main target of this ruling in this establishment in majority frequented by young people from Maghrebin origin is the Muslim veil. Yesterday, a dozen registrations were refused, the parents having refused to subscribe to the rule of the internal order.
Its been five years that Mariame, who has always worn the veil, has studied here, confided Zohra El Mouch, mother of a young girl of 19 years. Today, they refused her the right to finish her studies. Where will she go? The same question concerns the second daughter, Chalma: All we want is for our rights to be respected and for our daughters to be permitted to follow their studies, explained Mohamed, the father.
The latter came with a bailiff in order to witness the non-enrollment of his children. We are going to bring a complaint against the school and Minister Hazette (Minister of Secondary School Education in the French Community) for not respecting our fundamental rights and the Belgian Constitution. We will also introduce an appeal to the State Council.
Francis Lees, the principal of the school, explained that it was the drift of clothing preferences of certain young girls and their refusal to participate in physical education, swimming, history or biology that convinced us to add the ban to our rule of the internal order. Otherwise, we would no longer be able to teach in optimal conditions. This rule has received the backing of the minister. And most of the parents have accepted it.
Thursday morning, in front of the school, around fifty demonstrators could be counted. Among them, far from calming their spirits, were members of the PCP (Islamic Citizenship and Prosperity Party) and of the AEL (Arab European League).
On its side, the Executive of the Muslims appealed to reason, pleading for the suspension of the measure in order to organize a round table that could lead to a solution for all the schools.
With regard to the wearing of the veil, on the basis of Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights, the French Community has left the responsibility to the schools. I am not opposed to the idea of a round table, commented Pierre Hazette. But, there is no question of suspending the ban at Brussels II.
According to sociologist Mina Bouselmati, in 2002, 84% of French-speaking schools in the Brussels region refuse to register veiled students. The sociologist estimates that of the third of students in French-speaking Brussels City schools Muslims make up, 2% among them wear the veil.
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Anti-Semitism: Respect for the dead
Right to reply from Thomas Gergely, Professor at the Free University of Brussels (ULB)
Le Soir (25.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (05.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net
It is Monday, June 16, 2003.
I write these lines to atone for an affront that I did not commit, but that I was unable to prevent. My apologies. Because if it isnt me, then who will excuse himself? No one, without doubt. I teach at the Free University of Brussels. I am Belgian. I am a Jew.
I buried my mother last Wednesday. She was 95 years old. She came into the world in 1908, under the regime of Fran?ois-Joseph, in the Hungary of her origins, anti-Semitic already, to the cries of Death to the Jews.
She just left us to the cries of Dirty Jews!, in our Belgium which she cherished so much for the respect of others that she had found there. The shameful buckle of history closed itself on her, implacable in its repetition. And unpardonable.
The facts? Simple. In one of the communes of Brussels, a funeral home and a primary school are across from each other. The moment the funeral convoy set off of this lady, who was my mother, Arab children on recess, observing the star of David on her hearse, covered her remains with invectives. Powerless to protect her from this ultimate indignity, I could do nothing but follow her body, without reacting.
I remain mortified, humiliated and dismayed about it.
Here, one will learnedly explain to me that our young Arab compatriots, aged 6 to 12 years, have hatred because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that at their age, they confuse everything, as elsewhere do some that are older. Obviously, and nevertheless, its in explaining as well that one has everything wrong. In effect, the breach of duty in this case lies less with these kids than with the current teaching and its gaps in education, in the sensebut yesa little obsolete of the notion.
And I will explain myself. Fifty years ago, I was enrolled in the primary school of Ixelles, situated across from the ponds. Every day, during recess, passed, in front of the children that we were, funeral convoys going to the Sainte-Croix church in the current Flagey Square.
Every day, in their view, the entire course would stop itself, at the stand-at-attention, and Christians, Jews or others, we would remove our caps in homage to the stranger that they were taking there and out of respect for the mourners who followed. The old teacher that I am now, who, until this day, has already tried to form some 25,000 young people, would say without detour: two hours less of courses devoted to the tadpoles or the computers, and two hours more granted to elementary moralsfor example: One does not insult the deadand the obligation of mannerliness that follows, would contribute better to change the sad face of certain things that the round tables and other consensual chit-chat of adults, wanting to advance political correctness, with which we are fed to satiety.
If one had paid this nominal price, one would have, I dare believe, saved a near centenarian, who lived all the horrors of this beautiful twentieth century, without ever losing faith in humanity, never preferring one child over another, the inexcusable disgrace of leaving under the invectives of schoolchildren, blind through educational lack.
The shame is a little on them, a lot on their teachers and parents.
Back to school with the Islamic headscarf
Close to 80% of schools in Brussels refuse the veil
Le Soir (27.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (05.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The proportion in Brussels of French-speaking schools refusing the enrollment of Muslim students on the basis of the wearing of the headscarf rose to 84% in the whole of public and Catholic schools. Statistics that can be found in the work of the sociologist Mina Bouselmati (Le voile contre lintgrisme CThe veil against fundamentalism), appeared in 2002.
Let us remember. At the end of the last school year, in May, demonstrators from the Muslim community had gathered together outside the Athenee Bruxelles II* in Laeken to protest the project of the directors and teachers to include in the internal regulation the ban of the wearing of any head-covering, and thus of the Islamic veil, within the establishment.
The French-speaking Minister of Secondary Education, Pierre Hazette, had already given his support to the educational authorities. The minister is personally opposed to the wearing of the veil in schools, by concern for integration.
The teachers and the principal of the Athenee had reflected for several months on this ban, because they said they had noted that the wearing of the veil created more and more problems in the organization of the classes. The main target was a more and more negative attitude of young veiled Muslim girls who were opposed to the content of biology classes and who regularly made their participation in physical education classes an issue.
For Pierre Hazette, this situation was in contradiction with the provisions of the Missions decree, applicable to all schools.
The decision made by the Laeken secondary school is regretted by the Arab European League, about which the president of the Belgian section, Ahmed Azzuz, indicated to the BELGA agency that actions would consequently take place at the start of the school year, in Brussels and in Antwerp.
But this school is far (very far) from being the only one to ostracize the Islamic veil. On the basis of an inquiry conducted in 110 Catholic and public schools of Brussels (French-speaking), Mina Bouselmati had calculated that 84% of these schools refused to enroll Muslim students wearing the veil.
It is estimated in her work that a third of the students in Brussels schools are Muslim girls and 2% of them wear the veil. But the fact that more and more schools refuse enrollment of veiled girls induces a sort of ghettoization of these students in the schools that accept them, which dramatically increases the proportion of students with the headscarf in comparison to the rest of the population of the school. And this is what happened at Brussels II, thinks Mohamed Boulif, president of the Executive of the Muslims of Belgium.
According to the educational authorities, the refusal of enrollment of young Muslim girls wearing the veil reaches 87% in public schools under the authority of the City of Brussels, 88% in Catholic schools, against less than half (41%) in the French Community schools.
The councilperson in charge of public education in the City of Brussels, Faouzia Hariche, indicated that within schools run by the City, Brussels adopted (already several dozens of years ago) what it considers the wisest attitude: to forbid the manifestation of any religious, philosophical or political membership at school, so that a group cannot exert pressure. Ms. Hariche recalls equally that schools run by the City are secular.
About a year ago, the Council of State declared itself incompetent after the government of the French Community had asked his opinion on a document drafted by his Minister-President, Herv Hasquin (MR), relating to the wearing of distinctive signs with religious or philosophical connotation in schools.
* secondary school for students aged 12-18
New measure in the silent state anti-cult fight
HRWF Int. (25.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A new law on non-profit associations, which came into force on July 1, 2003, is a source of concern for minority religions in Belgium.
The law has indeed been drafted in such a way that it will allow identification of activists of minority religions. Each member of the board of directors will have to mention his/her own national registration number on the application forms, which is considered a breach of their privacy. The goal is to discover non-profit associations which hide cults, mafias and extreme-right movements, said the daily paper Le Soir in its August 23-24 edition.
The president of the Ligue des droits de lhomme (Human Rights League) told Le Soir, We are concerned. For the moment, we are examining the texts to check that the law does not breach fundamental freedoms.
The Cult Observatory has not made any public comment or statement about the provisions of this new law.
Is Father Samuel, a traditionalist Catholic priest, a guru?
HRWF Int. (25.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Father Samuel, a colourful and controversial figure, was born on January 1, 1942 in a small village in the southeast of Turkey. In 1967, he became a Syriac Catholic priest in Lebanon and was appointed in Turkey. He travelled to Western Europe on several occasions and denounced the persecution of Christian minorities in his country. His statements got him into trouble in Turkey, and he had to leave in a hurry. He arrived in Belgium in 1975, acquiring Belgian nationality in 1980. He then became a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
Father Samuel is a traditionalist Catholic priest who still gives mass in Latin. He presents himself as a medium, a clairvoyant, a healer and an exorcist. He attracts thousands of people from various realms of society. His faithful are generous and he is known to give the poor all the donations he receives. His movement was placed on the list of religious groups suspected of being harmful organisations. In the early 1990s, Father Samuel was dismissed by his bishop and deprived of his salary, but he successfully sued the bishop
Human Rights Without Frontiers Int. met Father Samuel on August 22nd and asked him, among other things, if he was the guru of a cult.
HRWF Int.: Father Samuel, in 1997, the Parliamentary Commission on Cults put your movement on the list of religious groups suspected of being a harmful cult organization. Did you get an invitation to appear before the Commission?
Father Samuel: No, the Commission never contacted me. I wrote to the president and the vice-presidents of the Commission to refute some of their accusations, but as soon as the report was published, the Commission was dissolved and the president answered that the report could not be changed. I was condemned for eternity without being heard, and the judgment is irreversible, but I do not care.
HRWF Int.: What were the consequences of the negative statements concerning you that were published in the parliamentary report?
Father Samuel: Some of the media presented me as a guru and my congregation as a cult. Fortunately, people are not stupid and they know my deeds. When my bishop fired me, he asked the State to stop the payment of my salary. I sued him and won my case. I finally received two years salary, 25,000 Euros/USD, which I publicly distributed to several Belgian organizations helping people in need. I have many friends among politicians and they appreciated a gesture that had never been made before by a Catholic priest paid by the State. I also financed a programme for children in hospitals. I do not need much for myself. I do not have a car, I do not go on vacation, I am not a pedophile, I will keep my sexual chastity until my last breath and I only eat once a day. A priest must be a model to be followed. I behave myself and live in conformity with my faith, and people appreciate that.
HRWF Int.: The Cult Observatory put in place four years ago is meant to pursue the work of the Parliamentary Commission on Cults. Did they contact you?
Father Samuel: No, they did not but I can understand that its president who is a theologian of the Catholic establishment will never do anything to restore the distorted image that the parliamentary commission gave of my person. Gurus exploit their followers. I am a guru who distributes everything he receives.
Executive of the Muslims: 9 members set aside because of "radicalism"
HRWF Int. (04.08.2003)/ Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Sixteen of the seventeen members of the new Executive of the Muslims of Belgium have been appointed by royal decree. The name of the last member has not been released yet but nine members have been put aside by the State because of so-called "radicalism".
Christine Defraigne, the head of the Liberal Group in the governmental coalition stemming from the May parliamentary elections, told the Minister of Justice Laurette Onkelinckx (Socialist Party) about her concern on the lack of women in the Executive. Minister Onkelinckx answered the question disturbed her as it had never been asked about the representative platform of the state-recognised and -financed religions.
The chairman of the Executive is Mr Mohamed Boulif and the three deputy chairmen are Didier Yassin Beyens, Ethem Kislali and Iqbal Qureshi.
Recognition of the members of the Executive of the Muslims of Belgium
HRWF Int. (30.07.2003)/ Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - In the aftermath of various crises inside the Executive as well as between the Executive, its General Assembly and the Belgian State, a new royal decree recognising the members of the new Executive of the Muslims of Belgium was signed on 18 July 2003 and published on 25 July 2003 in the Official Gazette (Moniteur).
Below, we publish the list of the 16 appointed members completed with some data on their background collected by HRWF Int. In the new Executive, there is no woman and only four members belonged to the former Executive. There is also a balance between the representatives of the Moroccans and the Turks who number respectively about 215,000 and 120,000 people on a population of about 370,000 Muslims:
BATAKLI Ismael (Turkish origin, French-speaking)
BAYKOZ Celalettin (Turkish origine, Dutch-speaking)
BEN SEDDIK Hassan (Moroccan origine, French-speaking, theologian)
BEYENS Didier Yassine (Belgian convert, French-speaking, medical doctor)
BOULIF Mohamed (Moroccan origin, French-speaking, economist)
BOUZIANE Ahmed (Moroccan origin, French-speaking)
CALISKAN Murat (Turkish origin, Dutch-speaking)
KEBDANI Abdelkarim
KISLALI Ethem (Turkish origin, French-speaking, staff manager)
LAYTOUSS Brahim (co-opted, Dutch-speaking, Muslim religious classes teacher)
MEGAHED Mahmoud (Egyptian origin, French-speaking)
MHAOUCHI Abdelmajid (Moroccan origin, French-speaking)
MOUSSAOUI Nasreddine (Algerian origin, French-speaking)
QURESHI Iqbal (Pakistani origin, Dutch-speaking)
TORFS Jan Nourredine (Belgian convert, Dutch-speaking)
VAN DEN BROECK Luc Omar (Belgian, Dutch-speaking, philosopher)
Their mandate starts on 1 May 2003 and comes to an end on 31 May 2004.
Towards a new Muslim Executive recognised by the State
Willy Fautre, Human Rights Without Frontiers Int.
HRWF Int. (29.04.2003) / Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - On 26 April, the council of ministers took a number of important decisions to try to put an end to the conflict between the Muslim Executive and the State.
A new 17-member Executive will soon be put in place but its mandate will be limited to 31 May 2004. By that date, a part of the General Assembly (68 members) will be replaced, most probably after new elections in the Muslim community.
Belgian Islam has gone through a lot of upheavals since the first elections which took place on 13 December 1998, some 24 years (!) after the official recognition of Islam by the Belgian State. Some elected candidates were thought to be close to fundamentalist circles and were rejected by the Ministry of Justice after the Intelligence Service had carried out a controversial screening. Due to this state interference, the Muslim Executive became a battlefield between its General Assembly and the State. In May 2002, the Federal government mandated two senators to consult the various parties involved in the imbroglio. Their report was submitted to the council of ministers on December 6, 2002 and proposed among other things to replace a part of the members of the Executive. On February 6, 2003, the Executive handed in its resignation outright.
Report on anti-Semitism in 2002
Colleen Chen and Jeffrey Picknicki Morski, Human Rights Without Frontiers
HRWF Int. (05.02.2003) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email: info@hrwf.net - In 2002, extreme-right movements and parties favoured a climate of anti-Semitism which resulted in insults, physical aggressions, destruction or damages to property against Jews, not only by extremist activists but also by ordinary citizens and members of non-extremist political parties.
Due to the conflict opposing the Palestinians to Israel, the main locus of anti-Jewish speech and deeds moved from the Muslim world to Western Europe through the Muslim diaspora. In Europe, including in Belgium, an increasing number of Muslims carried the banner of anti-Semitism and constituted a physical threat to Jews. Violent attacks with the intent of causing bodily harm were perpetrated in many cases by Muslim extremists.
The anti-Semitic mindset was also reinforced by West European media reporting of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and by the media coverage of Al-Jahzira closely followed by the Muslim diaspora in Europe.
Occurences
- On 18 January, holes were discovered in a window of the second floor and in the wall opposite it in the synagogue on Clinique Street in the Anderlecht section of Brussels. These holes may have been the result of gunfire aimed at the synagogue.
- On 25 January, drawings of swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans were found on the hand luggage of El-Al passengers in the security area of Brussels Airport. This is the third such incident at the Zaventem International Airport in Brussels recently, but this is the first time that the people who did this succeeded in slipping the material into the hand luggage of passengers of the Israeli airline in addition to spraying slogans on the outside of their luggage. The authorities have since adopted security measures designed to reveal the authors of these invective slogans.
- On 4 February, graffiti reading Death to the Jews was discovered on Jewish-owned shops in Brussels.
- On 10 March, anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered near the Muse de LAquarium in Lige. The graffiti read Long live Bin-Laden. Death to the Jews.
- On 1 April, at about 1:00 a.m., five Molotov Cocktails were thrown at the synagogue on Clinique St. in the Anderlecht section of Brussels. The Molotov Cocktails broke through second-story windows into the womens gallery, setting the benches on fire. The firefighters and police arrived quickly at the scene and brought the fire under control. There were no casualties and only minor damage.
- On 2 April, a car owned by a Jew was torched in a parking lot in Antwerp.
- On 3 April, vandals tossed Molotov Cocktails at a synagogue in the heart of a Jewish section of Antwerp. There were no casualties and only minor damage was caused.
- On the night of 2 and 3 April, the window of a Jewish-owned travel agency in central Brussels was damaged with bricks. The agency markets flights and trips to Israel and carries the sign of El-Al Agency.
- On 3 April, about 2000 people participated in an unlicensed and violent pro-Palestinian demonstration in central Antwerp. The demonstrators entered the Jewish quarter, burnt an Israeli flag, vandalised business establishments and torched automobiles. The rioters shouted epithets, including death to the Jews, and slogans condemning Israel and Prime Minister Sharon. Demonstrations were also held in Brussels, in which about 1000 people participated, and in Liege in which about 500 people participated. In these demonstrations, too, shouts in a similar vein were heard.
- On 4 April, a Molotov Cocktail was thrown at the Old Synagogue in Antwerp. Visiting worshippers noticed soot on the walls apparently caused by a burning Molotov Cocktail.
- On 4 April, in Antwerp, a city with a large Jewish population and a powerful extreme right political party (more than 30% at the last elections), the word Juif (Jewish) was discovered smeared on the walls of the houses.
- On 4 April, three young Jewish men were attacked as they were leaving the synagogue of the Belz Hassidic community in Antwerp. The attackers were a group of about 30 Muslims who severely beat them while shouting curses at the Jews, Israel and Prime Minister Sharon. One of the young men was hospitalised with serious injuries. The attack was perpetrated on a street near the synagogue, since the synagogue itself is guarded by police.
- On 17 April at 0200 hours, vandals broke into a shop selling religious articles in Brussels (Ixelles), setting it on fire with kerosene. The shop was completely destroyed.
- On 18 April, while a kosher restaurant near the Gare du Midi railway station in Brussels was closing for business, its owner heard the sound of a window being smashed. According to the police, the restaurants front window was shattered by a shot from an air rifle
- On 18 April, a ceremony was held at the monument to the Belgian Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Brussels (Anderlecht). During the ceremony, some children created a commotion and threw stones at the participants in the ceremony. The police brought the hooligans under control and the ceremony continued.
- On 19 April, anti-Semitic graffiti was seen on Jewish-owned shops on Chausse de Gand in Brussels (Molenbeek). The graffiti read: Dirty Jew! and We will burn you. A large part of the population in Molenbeek is of Arab origin.
- On 19 April, a Jewish family living in Chausse de Gand in Brussels was harassed once more in a series of such incidents over the past several weeks. Things reached the point where a gang from the area attacked the familys vehicle scratching on it Dirty Jew and a Star of David.
- On 21 April, the Chief Rabbi of Russia, who headed a delegation of the World Jewish Congress in Brussels, was attacked by a young person of Arabic origin. The attack occurred near the Gare du Midi when the rabbi was on his way to a demonstration against anti-Semitism held on Clinique Street in Brussels (Anderlecht). The rabbi was struck in the chest, called a Dirty Jew terrorist and robbed of his hat.
- On the night of 22 April, shots from an automatic weapon were fired at the synagogue in Charleroi. The synagogue was empty and no casualties were reported. Signs of some 18 bullets were discovered on the building. According to the police, the attacker or attackers fled the scene in a getaway car.
- On 3 May 2002, a number of Molotov Cocktails were thrown at the Sephardic synagogue in Brussels. The bottles hit the synagogue but did not explode and caused no damage. That same night a floor tile was thrown at the door of the synagogue.
- On 5 May 2002, a group of rabbis was attacked as they were leaving a train at the Central Metro Station in Brussels on their way to a conference of European rabbis being held in that city. At the entrance to the station, a group of persons began shouting at them "Dirty Jew" and the like. One of the gang, a person of North African appearance, spat on the rabbis. The same group of rabbis, upon leaving the conference, boarded a train on the Brussels mtro in order to return to the hotel where they were staying, and once again they were jostled and cursed,
- On 6 May 2002, a rabbi, participating in the European Conference in Brussels, was subject to shouted curses while on his way from his hotel to the Conference Hall.
- On 7 May 2002, during a visit of the participants in the Congress of European Rabbis to the synagogue on Rue de la Clinique in Brussels, young thugs from the neighbourhood shouted curses at a number of rabbis. The incident occurred with the local policemen, responsible for security, looking on.
- On 29 May 2002, the police discovered a home-made dummy bomb during a pro-Israel demonstration in Brussels. The object was in a suitcase and had been placed along the line of march.
- On 21 July 2002, in the course of his address to the nation on the occasion of the Belgian national holiday, King Albert II referred to radical phenomena in Europe in general and in Belgium in particular. The King mentioned a number of racist incidents in Belgium and severely criticized them. He called for tolerance between cultures, adding that the Middle East conflict should not affect events in Belgium. The speech and its timing are considered to be of great symbolic importance.
- On 29 August 2002, a telephone call was received at the French-language radio station RTBF in Brussels warning that a bomb had been planted in the synagogue on Rue De La Regence in Brussels. The police cordoned off the streets in the neighbourhood of the synagogue.
- On 8 September 2002, the Jewish New Year, antisemitic epithets were shouted at the Habad Rabbi in Rue de Forest in Brussels.
- On 8 September 2002, the Jewish New Year, a Jewish family was attacked in Brussels. Their assailants cursed them and beat them up.
- On 19th September 2002, a single shot, apparently fired from an air rifle, hit a Jewish youth in the shoulder during a Jewish community event at the Friends of the Hebrew University in Brussels. The young man was standing near the entrance to the house with his back to the street when he suddenly heard a shot and felt a blow to his shoulder. He suffered no injuries. The shot was apparently fired from a passing car.
- On 20 September 2002, on the eve of the Festival of Sukkot, an emissary of a solidarity organization with Israel in Belgium, the Chief Sephardic Rabbi in Brussels and one other person who was a worshipper in the synagogue, were attacked with curses and stones. They were attacked by a group of youths of North African origin as they were walking from the synagogue to the Rabbis home in Brussels.
- On 12 October 2002, as a group of children was arriving at the branch of the Zionist Youth Movement Hashomer Hatzair in Liege, an Arab cursed those standing near the gate, calling them dirty Jews, and spat at them.
- On 12 October 2002, a group of youths of North African origin attacked a Jewish family as it was returning from synagogue in Brussels. The hooligans cursed them and threw chestnuts at them.
- On 3 October 2002, a Jewish family in Brussels received a copy of the Jerusalem Post on which antisemitic graffiti such as dirty Jew and swastikas had been smeared.
- On 13 October 2002, copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion printed by various publishers were on sale at a stall in the market in Brussels.
- On 16 October 2002, an anonymous phone call was received at the office of the Beit Hillel Synagogue in Brussels. The caller made threats to the Jews. The caller had a Middle Eastern accent and spoke so quickly that it was impossible to understand what he said.
- On 19 October 2002, during an event in support of Israel that had been organised by the Israel Bonds in the Schaerbeek section of Brussels, vandals damaged three cars belonging to participants in the event. The vandals smashed the cars windows and scratched swastikas on the cars themselves
- On 23 October, an Orthodox Jewish man who had arrived from England for a visit to Antwerp parked his car on Van Immerseel St. in the city. As he was getting out of his car, a group of five young hooligans of Moroccan origin smashed the cars windows.
- On 25 October 2002, antisemitic graffiti were discovered near the Israeli Embassy in Brussels. The graffiti read "Death to [and a Star of David]". The graffiti had been sprayed in red on a parking sign.
- On 30 November 2002, a Molotov cocktail was tossed at the ancient synagogue in Antwerp that is no longer in use and is located in a neighbourhood where Jews no longer live. The building suffered slight damage to its windows.
On Thursday, 28 November 2002, two Molotov cocktails were found in the Jewish Quarter of Antwerp, near the Hasidei Belz Synagogue.
On January 7, 2003 Professor Anne Morelli published a "carte blanche" entitled "Whats the use of the sect observatory?" in the Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir. On January 22, 2003, former senator Serge Moureaux reacted to her article. We present you a translation of his text and our comments.
About cults : Answer to Anne Morelli
CARTE BLANCHE
Serge Moureaux, former socialist senator and lawyer
Le Soir (22.01.2003)/ HRWF Int. (27.01.2003 ) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - In a carte blanche published on January 7 ("What is the use of the sect observatory?"), Anne Morelli continues her crusade in favor of "sects," or to be more accurate, in favor of a soothing and watered down presentation of the sectarian phenomenon (). Anne Morelli attacks the enquiry commission on sects that I chaired and which tabled its report on April 28, 1997. It is all the more surprising that Mrs Morelli was heard extensively by the commission which took her viewpoint largely into consideration, even if some aspects of her opinion, which the commission found to be inaccurate, come within the scope of a systematic approach distorting and downplaying the sectarian phenomenon.
Mrs Morelli declares that the distinction between sects and religions is devoid of sense as religions are simply sects which were successful. Historically speaking, she is not incorrect. This being said, religious freedom, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, is not applicable any more when religion claims to invade the States civil sphere, to justify inquisition or the rape of consciences, to separate children from parents, to draw up lists of forbidden books, to anathematize those who leave the Church, etc. In other words, religious freedom can only be invoked if human rights, the childs rights and individual freedoms are fully respected.
The enquiry commission has not changed its stand and has, therefore, not created an artificial opposition between "good official religions" and "bad sects". To the great surprise of many and the indignation of some, the revelation by some witnesses of harmful practices in some associations linked to very official churches, such as the catholic church, (Opus Dei, Charismatic Renewal, etc.) was not in the least concealed by the commission. Hence the reaction of the catholic hierarchy to the list published in the report. Mrs Morelli who claims to be a Free Thinker, is curiously on the same intolerant ideological line as the episcopate or the Vatican. Moreover, she is on the same line is the American government which in several reports, openly takes up the defence of harmful sectarian organisations that took refuge in the United States and which, as "new religious movements", enjoy various fiscal advantages.
A second thesis dear to Mrs Morelli is that the adherence to sects (including collective suicides) is an individual freedom and the right of consenting adults. This thesis is contradicted by facts, often quite dramatically. In the case of the collective suicides committed in the Order of the Solar Temple, the commission could not do anything other than record that a baby had been ripped open by a stake on the grounds that he was allegedly the reincarnation of Satan. Numerous other harmful sectarian organisations systematically kidnap children, removed them from their parents and their families, send them abroad and entrust them to the gurus of the "sect."
During hearings of victims of harmful sectarian organisations behind closed doors (they had to testify under cover of anonymity because of the threats of reprisals), I have been aware of the physical, moral, psychological and social distress of numerous disillusioned, manipulated, and swindled followers who were separated from their families or their children. This is the reality that Mrs Morelli tries to conceal by improperly decking out these organisations in the nice name of "new religious movements."
As far as the report of the commission is concerned, it is complete, objective, respectful of the rights of the defendants (those who wanted to be heard were), very well founded and based on more than 120 public or anonymous testimonies (the commission of the French National Assembly only heard 20 witnesses!). It does not endorse the social reprobation linked to the concept "sect" and makes clear in its conclusions that "for the enquiry commission, sects or new religious movements do not pose a danger in se and are not a priori harmful." This is the opposite of the allegations of Mrs Morelli and of those who systematically misrepresent the conclusions (and they are numerous) to denigrate the work of the commission.
Answering a pressing request from administrative and judicial authorities, the commission proposed the concept "harmful sectarian organisation" and defined it as "a philosophical or religious group or pretending to be so, which in its structure or in its practices perpetrates harmful illegal activities or harms individuals, society or human dignity." It is difficult to be more accurate and more exhaustive while respecting meticulously the constitutional principle of religious freedom. Of course, all this is the result of a rational conception of social relations. Is rationalism again becoming a sin against thinking? I persist in not believing so.
And when I read again the commissions hearing of the representatives of the raelians and the data highlighted therein, I am proud of our work: from 1997 on, we have identified the ideological framework underlying the (true or false) cloning project worked out by this dangerous sectarian movement. Dangerous, because by using the swatiska intertwined with the Jewish star, the raelian movement advocated geniocracy (the rule by geniuses having a 150 IQ!) and they even wrote "elections must be suppressed."
The commission had rightly discovered that the raelians wanted to select elites on the model of Nazi eugenics and to create a society rejecting democracy and universal suffrage and go back to the dictatorship of an oligarchy.
The enquiry commission had worked well. Together with the other rapporteurs C in particular Antoine Duquesne who had invested much energy in this enquiry - I hoped that the sect observatory that we had launched would continue and enlarge our work. Unfortunately, this institution was submitted to a permanent blackmail (in particular by the United States) and was intimidated by lawsuits and threats of lawsuits from a number of harmful, aggressive sectarian organisations C they are used to and fond of that C who have at their disposal substantial financial means and who have united their efforts at the international level through associations that usurp the concept of defence of human rights. The sect observatory does not really fulfil its mission and does not answer when it receives queries about the dangerous character of certain movements. Consequently, a number of citizens address them to me and not to the Observatory! Or to Mrs Morelli - a result that can be expected when you read what she writes, even though she told the enquiry commission: "Some sects are criminal conspiracies the leaders of which use the religious aspirations of the people in order to satisfy their personal interests." Is there a better way to say it?
Some Comments by HRWF Int.
HRWF Int. will limit its comments on some points of Mr Moureaux article which presents many inaccuracies, exaggerated statements, errors, questionable judgements of value and biased information.
First of all, it must be noted that the Sect Observatory failed to ask for a right to answer Anne Morellis article "What is the use of the Sect Observatory?" and instead, the former chairman of the parliamentary commission on sects reacted to it. However, this "carte blanche" by former senator Philippe Moureaux is not an answer to Professor Morellis as it fails to comment on any of the controversial issues that she raises:
- the political and ideological appointments of the members of the board of the Sect Observatory;
- the political manoeuvres behind the inability of replacing some members of the board;
- the lack of independence of the Sect Observatory from the political parties in power and from the anti-sect movements, both duly represented in the board;
- the silence of the Sect Observatory about acts of discrimination committed against minority religions and their members by public authorities (ministers, mayors, tax administration, etc.);
- the negative consequences on the lives of individuals and families provoked by the parliamentary list of groups suspected of being harmful sectarian movements.
Senator Moureaux does not react as a neutral party or observer of the sect issue but as a politician and a secular humanist activist who considers all religions, including the Catholic Church, as obscurantist. What is revealing is that he uses small letters for all religious movements (raelians, catholic church) and capitals for Free Thinking. Moreover, his language is typically anti-sect and on purpose dramatic and emotional. He lumps together all sorts of accusations against all the sects and puts himself above a recognized professor to teach her lessons in her own field of expertise. If sects had committed all the offences that he pretends, they would have been prosecuted and condemned for a long time but there are no such cases. Investigation was opened against three movements some years ago and up to now there has not been any condemnation, even by a first instance court.
However, Moureaux and Morelli agree on one point, but for quite opposite reasons, "The Sect Observatory fails to do its job properly". On the eve of parliamentary elections, this can be interpreted as a strong signal that the current chairman of the sect observatory should be replaced at the end of his mandate by a non-Catholic and more politically correct personality. Mr Denaux, who has been an anti-sect advocate in the Catholic Church, was appointed chairman of the board of the Observatory at a time when the Christian-Democrats were in power with the socialists, which has no longer been the case in the last four years and will apparently not be the case either in the next four years.
Attempts to suppress religious classes in public schools
HRWF Int. (27.01.2003 ) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net -
The parliament of the French Community, one of the federated entities of the Belgian state, is once more considering the replacement of religious and ethics classes by philosophy classes in primary and secondary schools. This would however necessitate a revision of the Constitution. Indeed, art. 24 says "The schools organized by the public authorities offer, until the end of obligatory schooling, the choice between the teaching of one of the recognized religions and non-denominational ethics." Another solution could be to make religious and ethics classes optional and philosophy compulsory but again art. 24 provides that an exemption system cannot be generalized.
The debate remains open before the parliamentary elections to be held in May but this is not the first time secular humanist forces endeavour to suppress religious classes in public schools (*) and thereby to keep away the influence of Catholicism. Such a project is part of a political agenda which tries to dechristianize the youth and to sign away the future of the political party inspired by the Catholic values.
(*) The Constitution says public schools are neutral and respectful of philosophical, ideological or religious conceptions but in reality, they are the privileged field of action of secular humanism.
What is the use of the Sect Observatory?
Anne Morelli, Professor at the " Institut des religions et de la la?cit de lULB " (1)
Le Soir (07.01.2003)/ HRWF International Secretariat (07.01.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - When the Raelians (2) announced a human cloning on 27 December, our Institute of Study of Religions was visited by two TV teams (RTBF and RTL) and various journalists of the printed press. They had not managed to get useful information from the Information and Advice Center on Harmful Sectarian Organizations (3), which is financed by the tax-payers via the federal government, and therefore, they had to consult the information collected by us in the last 20 years on this group as well as on any other religious group.
This event raises again the issue of the usefulness of the sect observatory, created in 1998 in the aftermath of the conclusions of the parliamentary enquiry commission on sects. Contrary to the commissions expectations, sociologists it had summoned expressed the view that it was impossible to draw a line between sects and religions, but the long work of the commission however led to the creation of the sect observatory: after all that, it was an anticlimax. The commissions publication of a list of movements suspected of being harmful sects was to cause long-lasting ravages, to provoke lawsuits, to ruin family lives and careers, although this list had no legal value.
On one hand, sociologists and historians remain doubtful about the validity of the concept "sect"; on the other hand, supporters of human rights and freedom of religion and belief have been vigilant about the functioning of the new governmental structure and its production (4).
The Center comprises twelve members and twelve substitutes. The recruiting method of these members is very far from guaranteeing their impartiality and their independence from political parties, the Catholic Church and various anti-religious ideologies. Indeed, half of the members are nominated by the Council of Ministers for approval by the House of Representatives while the other half is directly appointed by the House of Representatives. That means that a good share of appointees immediately came to be political personalities. Moreover, representatives of various anti-sect movements are also to be found among the members. Last but not least, the chairman, a theologian and a former senior of Brussels high seminary, who has been an anti-sect activist in the Catholic Church for more than twenty years, is both a judge and judged and does not seem to be in a better position to fulfil the guarantees required from the members by law to carry out their mission with independence, objectivity and impartiality. This heterogeneous group of members who have religious, philosophical and political commitments lacks coherence and divergent, indeed even contradictory, points of view have been reflected in a number of interviews in the media.
Some "political" substitutes have complained that they were not paid any fees if the member was present. Consequently, positions have soon become vacant. The replacement procedure is ineffective. A first call for applications was published in the "Moniteur" (5) on March 30, 2001 but was not followed by any appointments, despite the number of applications. A second call in the "Moniteur" on May 10, 2001 also aroused applications. However, nobody at the General Directorate of Religions C the competences of which are being transferred from the federal level to the federated entities C can say at what stage is the appointment procedure or what are the constraints of some hidden political agendas.
As far as the observatory is concerned, the independence of its functioning is scarcely guaranteed because of its links with the Ministry of Justice and the presence of public authorities officials assigned to it. Its activities are limited to the management of an expensive library, yet another one, which lacks the wealth of the existing university libraries on religions. It has published some "leaflets" and the few reports it has transmitted to the police on their request come to eminently predictable conclusions, such as for example "No, Mormons are not dangerous in Belgium". However, the observatory keeps silent about religious discrimination committed by public authorities and is careful not to criticize ministers or mayors who deny access to public halls to groups which act legally, on the grounds that they are on an alleged list of harmful sects.
One can wonder whether it is useful to have such an observatory which causes more problems than it solves and the mandate of which seems to us eminently controversial: a state agency that decides which religions are good or bad and without which all the countries of the world can do, except Belgium and until recently France. The latter has just deeply reformed its "Interministerial mission of fight against sects" (Official Journal, November 29, 2002) and got rid of Alain Vivien who had damaged Frances reputation on the international scene, which had earned this country, alongside Belgium, to be targeted by the U.S. State Department Report on International Religious Freedom.
At the OSCE Meeting in Warsaw, in September last, Human Rights Without Frontiers asked the Belgian Parliament to apply the same legislation to all the religious groups and to interrupt the mandate of the sect observatory. In the same way, the Provisional Report on Human Rights in the European Union criticizes the creation of this type of observatory, and more generally, the attitude towards religious minorities in Belgium.
Belgium ought to rethink its discriminatory religious policy. Our Constitution does not provide for any state agency nor judge to decide whether a religion is or is not licit, and freedom of religion and belief has not got other limits than the repression of crimes and offences in general.
(Translated by Human Rights Without Frontiers)
(1) HRWF Note: Institute of Study of Religions and Secular Humanism of the Free University of Brussels. HRWF will forward any comment or reaction to this report to Professor Anne Morelli.
(2) HRWF note: See the profile of the Raelian movement from a purely human rights point of view posted in 1999 on http://www.hrwf.net/html/raelianenglish.htm
http://www. hrwf.net/html/raelianen_nederlands.htm
http://www. hrwf.net/html/raelien_francais.htm
(3) (4) HRWF note: The name of the Belgian governmental sect observatory. See more about that on
http://www. hrwf.net/html/belgium2001.html
http://www. hrwf.net/html/raelianen_nederlands.htm
(5) HRWF note: Le Moniteur is the Official Journal in Belgium.
